Mrs Kay is also honest, "There's no point in pretending.........Most of them were rejects from the day they were born."
This was due to the family (mostly single parent situations), upbringing they had and the economical and social background they had. Mrs Kay understood and realised this, earlier in the play Carol asked Mrs Kay if she would ever have the chance of following her ambitions, she answered honestly, without lying.
What Mrs Kay want's to do is show them places that some will not even see again, giving them a break from the deprivation they lead at home in Liverpool. That is all Mrs Kay is bothered about - trying to make the children have a good day out, as they wont try and benefit from any educational values the trip might behold.
Throughout the play Mr Briggs is portrayed as a Cold, Self centered man who thinks nothing about himself.
Towards the end of the play, Carol, a small girl from the remedial class threatens to commit suicide after seeing a new magical place that she has never see before. While on the beach Carol goes missing causing worry and panic.
Mr Briggs goes off reluctantly, to find Carol, he does this reluctantly as he hasn't had any control over the group, and he thinks Mrs Kay is incapable.
Mr Briggs finds Carol on the edge of a cliff-top, at first his real personality comes out; self-centered, and un-concealed contempt; he uses his usual 'shouting and bullying' methods to try and order Carol away from the cliff edge "Carol Chandler, just come here....I'm talking to you Carol Chandler". It doesn't work, Carol doesn't respond to his shouting, she antagonises him by doing the opposite of what he says - going further towards the edge.
Then Mr Briggs gives a pointless ultimatum "I'll give you five seconds. Just five seconds. One. Two. Three. Four.....I'm warning you!"
It's pointless because what could he do if she didn't respond after the five seconds? He wasn't in the classroom anymore, which is where he was in most control.
After he count's he realises his methods won't work anymore, in that split second we hear the true reason why he doesn't want Carol to jump; "Just what are you trying to do to me?" he isn't bothered that much about Carol jumping, in his eyes, she wouldn't have made a difference to the world, he is bothered about himself, his career and what Carol could do to it.
Then Carol is shrewd enough to spot his reason why he doesn't want her to jump, because of the dent it could do to his career, Mr Briggs then hits back with the only defense mechanism he has got: lying; "Don't be ridiculous - just because I'm a school teacher it doesn't mean to say that..."
Carol soon catches on to the lie: "Don't lie you!...", then soon after he lies again telling Carol that if she worked hard at school she could come and live out in the country" he knew that she had got no chance, she had no chance of following her dreams from the day she was born, just because of the upbringing she has and where she was born.
Carol realises that there is no chance for her, she understands that she hasn't got a bright future in life so she reply's to Mr Briggs with "Don't be friggin stupid..."
Then Carol realises that Mr Briggs wouldn't let her stay in Conway; "If I stayed though, it wouldn't be no good. You'd send the coppas to come and get me".
She tries to come up with another way to stay in Conway, but she can't, but she doesn't want to go back to Liverpool, so it gave her no ultimatum but to jump, to escape from home.
Mr Briggs realises this, and for that split second, he probably felt sympathy for her, but then realised if she jumped his whole career was over, so Mr Briggs responded with, "Please", I thought this was unusual, as though he was begging for her to jump, but for his reasons and not her obvious reasons.
Then Carol just re-enforces her theory that she hasn't got a bright future: "Sir, sir y'know if you'd been my old fella, I woulda been all right, wouldn't I?"
She was right, if Carol had Mr Briggs as her father she would have been well off, educated and had a chance in life.
Then Mr Briggs gets anxious, in a way be-friends her, smiling, showing warmth, and a fatherly image.
If it means keeping his job he would rather smile for a few seconds than let his job go because of a small girl who was not going to change his life.
Carol falls for this trap, she falls for the false warmth of Mr Briggs, because she is insecure and doesn't get the warmth of a welcome smile from anyone at home. It shows how miserable Mr Briggs really was "Sir, you should smile more often, y'look great when y'smile."
It works, Carol responded to something as simple as a smile, "What'll happen to me for doin' this sir?" She stops thinking about staying in Conway and going back home and thinking about the consequences.
Briggs responds with another lie "Nothing. I promise you", Briggs was prepared to lie to her just so she was safe, but not for her well-being, but for his career.
It works, Carol comes away from the edge and grabs Briggs's hand, when they get back to the others, Mr Briggs kept his promise by saying "Mrs Kay, I've found her, now will you just let me deal with this", when Mrs Kay came over to Carol and Mr Briggs, was genuinely worried.
Mr Briggs changed his attitude from the Carol incident , he decided to get the coach party home safely, before he reprimanded them, (this would have deterred any negative thoughts that the pupils may have had, and drawn them away from doing anything that could have 'put his career on the line'). "Anyway, you can't come all the way to the seaside and not pay a visit to the fair", Mr Briggs discussed with his colleagues (I think he purposely did it in a way so that some of the children overheard him, so that he indirectly told them and not directly as he couldn't go down to the level of a 'Compassionate Teacher'). For once Mr Briggs was on their side. When Mr Briggs was 'nice' he earned the respect of the children with comments from them such as; "Sir, thanks, sir.", " We had a great laugh didn't we sir?" he didn't earn that sort of respect at the start of the trip when he was himself. He just wanted to earn respect from the children for the last hour of the trip, so he could get them home without any 'career harming' problems.
Another theory is that he realised that he wasn't getting any respect from the children, and Carol just proved this when she disobeyed his orders on the cliff top. He realised that he had to have a contingency plan, as his strict patronising teaching methods were only useful in the classroom, and he was outside now, where his teaching methods and regulations were useless. So to gain future respect, he changes his ways for one afternoon, which would hopefully left a lasting mark.
When they are just arriving back into Liverpool, Mrs Kay gets her film with plenty of photo's of Mr Briggs being 'happy' ready for development. Mr Briggs then gets told "I've got some gems of you here" by Mrs Kay, Mr Briggs realises that if anyone else sees the image of him happy they will be less respectful to him and it could taint his stern looking image.
So he offers to 'develop them' himself, tricked, Mrs Kay accepts this offer.
After saying goodbye to everybody he gets into his car and drives off home, on the way he passes Carol. This just re-iterates what was said earlier by Carol, "Don't lie you. I've seen you goin home in your car passin us on the street. And the way y'look at us. You hate all the kids."
It's simple; after the day-trip he hasn't changed at all.
VIEWPOINT
Report to Headmaster from Mrs Kay on the Remedial Group's Trip to Conway Castle
The trip was a huge success with everybody enjoying the trip, staff and children alike.
We started our day with a coach trip, I strongly recommend we use this coach company again as the driver was very pleasant.
After a brief stop at a roadside cafe we carried on our journey, on the way to Conway Castle, I thought about taking the children to the zoo, it would benefit the children hugely, as many of the children wouldn't have even seen some of the animals the zoo had to offer. I spoke to the driver who was more than happy to divert the trip for an hour.
In the zoo the children were enchanted by Mr. Brigg's knowledge of animals, they listened intently as he told them about exotic animals, that some of the children wont even see in their lifetime again.
After half an hour of listening to Mr. Briggs (which is more than I can get out of them in my lessons!) they went round the zoo on their own, never have I seen these children smile gleefully.
After an hour in the zoo, we boarded the coach again, with one little hiccup, a few of the children couldn't bear to leave some of the little furry creatures behind, no harm was done and they were carefully given back to their respectful owners.
After another short coach journey during which the children sat quietly and caused no disruption we arrived at Conway Castle. We decided to take the children around in groups, so they could learn more about the history of the castle.
The children were amazed and were enthralled at the ruins of the spectacular castle.
After two hours in the castle, the children were in their fields of heaven. I decided to let them release some excess energy by taking them to the beach, as they had been so well behaved all day.
On the beach the children were well behaved the teachers even taught some of the more interested about sea life in the rock pools. For a few moments one of our more adventurous pupils - Carol Chandler decided to venture off away from the group, but Mr. Briggs soon came back with her, and no harm was done. Then I thought it was time to go, but Mr. Briggs thought it would be a great idea if we went to the fun park situated by the beach. I agreed, so we took the children to the attraction park. We had so much fun, Mr. briggs was such a good sport, he went on the rides with the children and included everyone. I was really impressed with Mr. Briggs I would be more than happy for him to join us on our next trip, which I am planning already, as this trip was nothing but a success!
Report to Headmaster from Mr Briggs's on the Remedial Group's Trip to Conway Castle
Never in my life have I seen such barbaric behavior, the trip was a total disaster, it was nothing but hell, a horrific experience.
We started off on the coach, first impressions weren't good, with the coach driver who obviously was certifiably insane. Within minutes of setting off, I caught three boys smoking on the back seat, one thirteen year old boy who I caught smoking told me he started when he was eight, a typical child with typical attitude of a child out of Mrs. Kay's group.
I also noticed on the way a Miss Linda Croxley, who disobeyed school rules by coming onto a school trip in clothes that were non-regulation.
After stopping at a service station, at which Mrs. Kay deliberately distracted me from my supervisory duties, Mrs. Kay made an unscheduled stop at the local zoo, it was not on the itinery and was another on e of Mrs. Kay's instantaneous thoughts.
Having no choice as we had already arrived at the zoo with no prior knowledge from any of the staff apart from Mrs Kay, I decided to go a long, to try and educate the children on natural science instead of letting the children run around the zoo and let them cause havoc.
After half an hour educating the children on North Atlantic Penguins, Mrs Kay, again deliberately took me away from the children, I gave them a little bit of trust and let them have the last half hour on their own so they could behave like responsible human beings.
All was well I thought when we got to the coach, all the children were present, quiet and ready to go. Maybe they could be trusted I thought, then as we were just about to leave, the zoo keeper ran, halting the coach and climbing on-board shouting, his exact words were "Are you supposed to be in charge of this lot?" and "children, they're not bloody children, they're animals. That's not a zoo out there, this is a bloody zoo in here!"
I took hold of the situation, demanding to know what the children had done. Then as soon as I had finished my sentence, there was a noise from the back of the coach, a clucking noise. The keeper went up to the child and uncovered a hen from underneath his coat. Then two more keepers came on board, then with some more shouting from the zoo keeper, the whole coach, produced some sort of animal, Goats, hens, rabbits birds every single zoo animal imaginable was on board.
I kept my calm and severely reprimanded the children, making them sit in silence, and then the group to be escorted in groups when we got to the castle.
We got to the castle, and I split the group into four smaller ones. Each member of staff having a group each. After ten minutes, the children were back to their old ways, running around, causing havoc, climbing over brittle ruins and intimidating the visitors who were already there. There were children everywhere, without any adult supervision, the staff were incapable and incompetent. I decided to go and have a word with Mr. Kay to try and sort out the problem. When I spoke to Mrs. Kay, all I got was a load of verbal abuse, I was told it was me who was seeing things and she thought what happened that day was quite acceptable and it was up to me to 'stop seeing the chaos'. Then she told me that she was taking the children to the beach, and if I wanted the visit to stop, that I start walking because she was taking them to the beach and that was it!
After that I didn't want any part in the ill-organised affair, so I decided to just stay out of it and sit out of the way.
The next thing I know is Mrs. Kay is running up to me asking if I had seen Carol Chandler, she was so irresponsible that she had lost a child! it's a miracle how they didn't lose all of the children, so we set up a search party, looking for Carol, after a few minutes I managed to find her, trying to commit suicide! She was driven to the point of killing herself, because life was that bad at home and simply wanted to stay in Conway.
After a few moments I talked her down from the cliff edge and we came back to the group. Then again, Mrs. Kay's spontaneous mind sprung into action "it's still early, why don't we go to the fairground? I was amazed that after a girl had just tried to commit suicide, she wanted to extend the trip to go to the fairground. In the fairground at least the children behaved themselves there.
Another detail I should include, Susan, one of the helper's on the day, was seen by me holding one of the pupils in an affectionate manner. I am sure this is a matter we need to discuss in detail with someone from the education office.
This has to be one of the worst trips I have ever been on, the teachers are incompetent and incapable. I have never seen such an unprofessional body of teachers, and the children are animals.
